


crush.

by mihkrokosmos



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Again, Angst, Chan and Changbin are mentioned, Coming Out, Fluff, M/M, but also not angst, but u could read it like that, don’t psychoanalyse this, implied internalised racism, it’s not mentioned but jisung has a tiktok, minho centric i guess, not rly angsty, not rly internalised homophobia, not that fluffy either, ok kinda, or something like that, stream nct dream boom, this is set in a small town in ireland because i like to project
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 20:10:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19979827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mihkrokosmos/pseuds/mihkrokosmos
Summary: “lying on the mat with you, i cannot help but want us to be our own kipuka, our own aftermath, visible.” — ocean vuong.minho is indecisive and homesick and lost. jisung gets it. he always does.





	crush.

**Author's Note:**

> therapist: how do we deal with our problems?
> 
> me: give them to a character!!!
> 
> therapist: n-no. no.

it starts like this:

minho is moved into a small house in a quiet neighbourhood when he’s, what, two? maybe three? the house is alien, unknown, and he hates it. hates it enough to cry nonstop. that’s what he was always told, anyway. he’s no superman — he can’t remember every detail. can superman even do that? he’s not sure. never been a fan of those movies.

he remembers that he felt so tiny compared to the new house, the new town. the feeling doesn’t last long.

minho grows, the town doesn’t.

  
  


his house isn’t too bad. it could be a lot worse, so he should be  _ grateful _ (his mum’s words, not his). he gets a room to himself and everything. there’s a small double bed, sandwiched between a wardrobe with a creaky door and a chest of drawers too small to fit anything useful. the covers change with his phases — mulan, harry potter, star wars — and right now, they’re plain white with a gold blanket which gets tossed to the side, ‘cause it’s way too warm. there’s also a tiny rainbow flag hidden underneath the pillow minho sleeps on, but that’s neither here nor there.

right now, the blanket is lying haphazardly on the ground. then again, there’s a lot of stuff on the ground. for example, an energetic black-haired boy called  _ han jisung _ , surrounded by cushions and sheets. he’d climbed through the window, like a fucking dumbass, all because he wanted to build a blanket fort.

(“and,” he had added, as an afterthought, “i wanna watch that new netflix kdrama. you still have netflix, right?”

“yeah, i still have netflix. you used it, like, yesterday. did you fall and hit your head?”)

“hey!” jisung whisper-yelled, “i think it’s stable. climb in!” 

minho rolled over, brows arched in his typical  _ bitch, please  _ expression. everyone else just called it  _ rbf _ , but jisung exposed him for doing it on purpose a while ago. it didn’t make the people at school any less scared of him, so minho just let it slide.

“it’s a blanket fort. it’s unstable by definition,” he retorted, reaching down to poke at a contraption of pegs and hair bobbles tying two pieces together.

jisung batted his hand away, glaring.

“ _ don’t _ ! fuck you, you’re unstable by definition —”

“whoa, don’t expose me like that.”

“just get in the fort, asshole.”

being best friends with jisung was like a möbius strip. there’s no beginning, no end. it’s just a  _ thing _ — it just  _ happened _ . if you asked minho now it started, he couldn’t answer. jisung had hurtled into his life bearing gross, flat  _ sprite  _ and slightly melted cookies. minho didn’t know where he’d come from, but he knew he would stay. 

and he did. stay, that is.

eight-year-old minho dealt with it the same way eighteen-year-old minho dealt with climbing into a blanket fort: easily, but with a fuckton of complaining.

“yeah, there’s no way this is gonna stay up for sixteen episodes of  _ abyss _ ,” minho decided.

he clicked his way to the first episode, anyway. not because it was impossible to say no to jisung, but because it was impossible to disappoint him. so, same thing, really.

  
  


they get to the fourth episode when jisung remembers he had a final page of maths homework to do before he breaks for summer next week. minho has been free since his last exam, a couple days ago. he’s already forgotten how words and numbers work.

“just don’t do it,” minho grumbles, eyeing the clock which reads 20:05, “it’s too late to think about maths. what’s your teacher gonna do, anyway? write a note? summer starts next week, for fuck’s sake.”

something in jisung’s face changes, and minho knows there’s  _ more to it _ . there’s always  _ more to it _ , because they’re two korean kids in a small town in fucking ireland and the area is about as white as an exam paper. there’s stereotypes and biases and stupid remarks from kids who haven’t been exposed enough of the world to know better. there’s a strange rebellion in their very presence. god forbid something is  _ simple _ .

“i got b-minus in the final assessment,” jisung hums, all casual.

“that’s pretty good,” minho shrugs, all casual.

“you wanna know what my teacher said?”

jisung is facing minho now. his jaw is set, eyes resentful and minho knows what the words are before jisung even opens his mouth again. he’s heard them himself, from kids and from teachers and from his mum’s boyfriend who really shouldn’t even be allowed opinions at all.

“she said, ‘jason han, i was under the impression that asians were good at maths.’ direct  _ fucking  _ quote.”

minho exhales. slow, purposeful. there’s a violence simmering in jisung’s words, a slow-burning anger. minho should talk him down, tell him  _ it gets better _ ,  _ don’t take it too personally _ . whisper quiet nonsense until jisung’s fury is quelled and they can go back to the drama.

minho doesn’t do any of this. 

jisung trembles under the weight of minho’s hug, slow to respond, intense when he does. words don’t help, not when you’ve been told this shit since day one and it’s already burrowed under your skin and sunk into your bones. minho knows this. jisung knows minho knows.

he knows better than anyone, what the weight of the stereotypes do to a person. with that logic, he needed to say something. it would be utter bullshit, probably, but it would be  _ something _ .

and there’s so much he wants to say to jisung. there’s so many words he owes to the boy, but what comes out is this:

“did you bring the problems with you?” minho asks, no louder than a quiet murmur, “i can help. shit, we can just google the answers.”

jisung snorts, whacking him on the arm.

“what would your mother say, huh? so much for being a model student.”

minho scoffs, rolling over until jisung is pinned underneath him. it’s precarious — the pillow fort is anything but stable, minho is a breath away from slamming his hand into the laptop keyboard — but so many things are precarious with them. it’s a constant push and pull. they are balancing on a wire, toeing the line between never and always.

“i’m free, bitch,” minho reminds jisung, forcibly hauling them back on stable ground. this is safe, this is  _ known _ . there are conversations they need to have, he knows this, but there are moments he doesn’t want to ruin and could never bring himself to forget.

“oh yeah, forgot about you leaving school,  _ bitch _ . what happens next, anyway? heard your mum tellin’  _ my  _ mum that you’re slow as hell to figure shit out.”

the air is humid and the laptop is beginning to overheat, fan blocked by the crumpled sheets and blankets. the material is too soft against minho’s hands. he doesn’t know why it bothers him. minho knows a lot, but he hasn’t a fucking clue.

jisung is there. here. he’s brought a hand up to fix minho’s tousled hair. it restarts his breathing and the lock around his lungs is broken.

“hey, minho, you don’t need to rush. you know that, right?”

minho opens his mouth, tries to say something like  _ when did you get so smart _ but it sounded discordant against jisung’s melody so he… doesn’t speak.

just flops down beside jisung and pretends his heart isn’t on fire.

“i know. it just feels like i do,” he mumbles, “it’s one of  _ those things _ . like… i know there’s not really a rush, ‘nd i’ll be fucking myself over if i dive in without thinking. still feels like i’m letting about seven billion people down by waiting, though.”

“can tell you right now that the world doesn’t give a shit about a random korean kid about to go to university.”

“and you say  _ i’m _ the bitch.”

it helps. they’re both aware it helps. it’s healing, being reminded that you’re not as different as everyone else wants you to think you are. the knowledge that the world is so much bigger than one tiny town is a goddamn  _ bandaid _ .

“read ocean vuong the other day,” jisung announces, like this is a  _ big deal _ . probably is, so minho just offers him a curious hum. jisung goes on, “found out about  _ kipuka _ .”

“what the fuck is that?” the question springs out, unbidden, but nobody really minds (despite the tonal difference).

“ _ the piece of land that’s spared after a lava flow runs down the slope of a hill—an island formed from what survives the smallest apocalypse _ ,” jisung quotes the words with feigned nonchalance. 

minho was right, this  _ was  _ a big deal to jisung. he listens.

“…okay. explain it to me.”

“it… only becomes  _ kipuka  _ after it has… endured? yeah, that’s what it said. before all the damage, it was insignificant. and then it  _ survived _ , so it became, like, relevant. important.  _ kipuka _ .”

“kipuka,” minho echoes, most likely butchering the pronunciation of it. 

minho turns his head to the side, both surprised and  _ un _ surprised to see jisung already staring back at him. the boy glows in the pale blue laptop light and he’s… stunning. 

minho’s feelings for jisung are a fucking wildfire. the longer they go ignored, the worse they become until there’s not a fucking centimetre left unsinged.

he wants to cry, or punch a wall. it’s like a richard siken poem without the sophistication and all of the rawness. jisung deserves minho’s words, but the radio frequency is wrong and all he is receiving is static. they don’t address it.

“wanna unpause?” 

“kinda wanna watch something else. what about the maths homework?”

“nah, you were right. summer is next week. it doesn’t matter.”

  
  


clouds bruise the sky. blue, purple, grey. rain dances just out of reach, waiting until the day is old enough to be ruined by a sudden shower. that’s one thing about ireland: rain never stops. better than a drought, yeah, minho would just like to get through  _ one day  _ without looking like a drowned rat.

today, though, he’s inside. not his own house (his mum is sick of seeing him doing nothing), jisung’s house. if it was anyone else, minho would feel bad about imposing. this is jisung, so all minho feels bad about is pushing him off the sofa.

he doesn’t even feel bad about it.

“saw chris and changbin started a soundcloud,” jisung grins, shoving his phone in minho’s face. he has to go cross-eyed to look at it.

“wait, so they met up?” minho blinks slowly, mouth opening in confusion and badly concealed disbelief. he makes a grab for the phone, just to check the details for himself.

chris and changbin are broke college students. one lives in australia and the other in south korea. the chances of them getting enough money for flights? uh… not bloody likely. hey, maybe one of them got a sugardaddy! chris had the personality for it, but changbin had the looks… he was getting distracted. 

“what? oh, no. they’re posting separate shit until they can meet up. it sounds cool, right? they asked me if i wanted to join in on it — give me my phone back — but i said no, ‘cause i don’t really want people to find it —  _ minho _ , phone. give it back — people here can be dumb about that shit —  _ give me my phone back _ .”

minho hardly looks up from spamming jisung’s camera roll with terrible selfies which would definitely make the rounds on social media if people weren’t still oddly terrified of  _ the lee kid _ . you fight one person in fourth year and suddenly you’re a fucking villain. madness. jisung tries to snatch it out of his hand, futile when all minho has to do is roll over.

“you would’ve enjoyed it,” minho points out, tossing the phone back down to jisung, “like, you would’ve gotten so much shit from other people, but you would’ve had fun.”

“maybe,” is all jisung says, enigmatic and effortless.

minho doesn’t push it. 

“we should watch a movie,” is what he says, “looks like it’s gonna rain, anyway. no point in going to the park.”

going to the park means moving, which is a lot of effort when jisung is already starting up the television, netflix opened before minho can even suggest digging out jisung’s battered laptop.

“what about  _ love, simon _ ? i haven’t watched it yet. haven’t finished the book either. i wanna, though. it’s so fucking good. leah deserves the absolute world. like, they all do. we stan,” jisung rattles off, scrolling through titles.

a certain sentence works its way up minho’s throat, snagging on his teeth and tangling itself until it reaches incoherency. by the time minho’s lips part, it’s just a breathy laugh.

“good choice. hang on, i’ll move over. i’m not letting your first  _ love, simon  _ experience be ruined by sitting on the floor.”

the words are hazy, but they’re forming and minho’s not sure how much longer he can stifle them for. honestly, there’s no real reason for his hesitation. except for the whole ‘fear of abandonment’ thing, but that’s not important. kinda.

“what a gentleman. maybe you  _ were  _ raised right.”

“okay, seriously? get fucked.”

  
  


jisung is younger than minho, sixteen years old and it shows. the two year gap never bothered minho in the past and it doesn’t bother him now. jisung is sixteen, sure, but he’s got that  _ exposed to the internet too young  _ type of intelligence and minho gets it. there are days when minho reckons jisung is a child prodigy and there are days when he wants to whack jisung over the head for saying some weird shit.

they’ve always been jisung and minho, minho and jisung.  _ feels _ like always, anyway. minho’s almost certain that’s why he was the first one to know about jisung’s sexuality. there’s a loneliness in being the one to shatter the expectations, minho realises —

(jisung said, “i’m bi.”

minho said, “cool.”

that was it).

— he also realises that jisung tells him everything and minho shares virtually nothing. they still know each other inside and out. somehow. they know random shit — for example, they’re both afraid of heights but minho is the only one afraid of falling. he’s always been afraid of falling.

**@leeknow**

_ hey are u up _

**@j.one**

_ is this a booty call _

**@leeknow**

_ nvm i’m going to sleep bye _

**@j.one**

_ NOOOOOoooooo _

_ u wanted 2 talk about something _

  1. _let’s talk motherfucker!!_



**@leeknow**

_ i should probably do it in person lmao _

**@j.one**

_ u prefer writing over talking tho _

_ bc u have time to word it _

_ so say it here _

_ n if it’s serious like ‘i murdered someone’ _

_ well _

_ i’ll call u. or u can call me. _

_ pls say it’s not murder _

**@leeknow**

_ it’s not murder _

**@j.one**

_ thank fuck _

**@leeknow**

_ wait _

_ did u expect me to say it was murder _

_ jisung _

_ jisung????? _

**@j.one**

_ wow look at the time _

_ time 4 u to talk about what u wanna talk abt _

_ haha _

**@leeknow**

_ ur the worst _

_ anyway _

_ jisung _

_ ok i’m so glad i didn’t do this in person _

_ i can barely type it out wtf the fukc _

**@j.one**

_ hey _

_ it’s ok  _

_ it’s always gonna b ok _

_ u kno that right??? _

_ go ahead bitch baby _

**@leeknow**

_ dumbass _

_ okaaaaaay uhhh _

_ i’m _

_ ajdfkskfkskf RIGHT OK.  _

_ i’m gay.  _

**@j.one**

_ okay _

**@leeknow**

_ yeah _

_ can u call me _

_ or something _

_ idk _

**@j.one**

_ ofc _

minho only realises he’s shaking when he drops the phone trying to answer the call. jisung’s contact icon is a photo of the pair of them with cat whiskers, courtesy of some dumb filter app minho downloaded. they looked four shades too pale, because  _ whitewash _ . cute, though. 

minho answers the call before his ringtone ( _ heartbeat  _ by suran, thanks for asking) can wake his mum up. she’s a light sleeper.

_ heartbeat, heartbeat, speeding up. _

“hey,” jisung whispers, because it’s, like, three in the morning, “you good?”

“i think so,” minho whispers, because he might be on the verge of tears, “… thanks, sungie. it’s really late.”

“late as in ‘it’s three in the morning’?” jisung asks, like the weirdly intuitive sixteen-year-old he is, “or  _ late _ ?”

“late as in ‘i wanted to tell you ages ago’. like,  _ ages _ ago. you could tell, though, couldn’t you?”

“yeah. but, minho,” here, jisung takes a breath and tells minho what he’s always  _ known  _ but never quite believed, “you don’t need to rush.  _ it’s okay _ . i know you think the world won’t wait for you, but it will. this isn’t something you can speed through, either. it’s a big fucking deal.”

minho can only roll his eyes and huff out the tiniest of laughs. right. he doesn’t need to rush.

“when did you get so wise?”

“one of us has to be smart.”

“fuck you.”

minho reaches under his pillow, fingers brushing the corner of the flag he’s kept hidden for so fucking long. the fabric is coarse and rough under his touch. he tugs it out, holding his breath. the colours are barely visible in the dull glow of his fairy lights and it doesn’t matter because he knows them by heart.

“you still there, minho?”

“yeah,” the next words are hard to say; he says them anyway, “hey, jisung? i  _ like _ you. a lot.”

“yeah?”

“yeah.”

  
  


it ends like this:

they don’t actually date. not until minho is halfway through majoring in dance and jisung has joined him (though he’d gone down the music production route). even then, it takes them quite a while to acknowledge how serious they are. they do get there.  _ eventually _ .

okay, maybe it takes a lot of shoving from their (new) friends and a ridiculously big misunderstanding revolving around a lost parakeet, jam doughnuts and a girl called ryujin. minho should probably send her a  _ thank you  _ card. or an apology. either one would fit. 

he digresses.

there’s so much that happens between never and always, that little grey area before the ground disappears beneath your feet. minho is still afraid of heights — he values his life — but he’s  _ less  _ afraid of falling.

“what are you thinking about?” jisung laughs at his pensive expression, intertwining their hands together.

“kipuka,” minho replies, all faux-serious before he can’t fight the grin dancing across his mouth.

“damn, we got a poet on our hands.”

minho brings jisung’s hand up to his lips, presses a thoughtful kiss to the back of it, pretends he didn’t hear the playful jibe.

“i might love you, fucking loser.”

“ _ might _ ? i will dump your ass right where i found it,” jisung glares. there’s no heat behind it, never is, and he just turns so they’re both hugging and —

it’s  _ nice _ . it’s so nice.

“i’m kidding,” minho snorts, “i love you.”

“yeah?”

“yeah.”

**Author's Note:**

> twitter: gayleeknow  
> hey. friendly reminder that u don’t need 2 rush. it’s ur life n nobody else's. u got this!!


End file.
